Help with grammar in SN 12.34? This may make this sutta make more sense

Discussion
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Hi everyone. There’s a part of this sutta which doesn’t make sense to me in English and I’m exploring the grammatical possibilities for what it might mean. Help would be much appreciated!

And the knowledge that this knowledge of the stability of natural principles is liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease.
yampissa taṃ dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ tampi khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhammanti ñāṇaṃ.

Bodhi has:

The knowledge: ‘That knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma is also subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation.’

Ireland seems to take a quite different interpretation:

the knowledge that whatever there is of knowledge concerning the relatedness of phenomena, this is also of a nature to decay, to pass away, to be destroyed and to cease.

I would like to leave dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ untranslated for now, and focus rather on the strict possibilities for the grammar of the rest of this passage.

Firstly I do not fully understand the functioning of the three terms yampissa (which I assume to be ‘yaṃ pi assa’, optative); taṃ; and tampi. I don’t fully understand how they function together so if anyone can explain the possible meanings these give here, that would be much appreciated!

Then the ti - how do we determine how far back it opperates? Is it just opperating on khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhamma[ṃ];
or on taṃ dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ tampi khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhammanti? Or could it theoretically be either/or?
If the former, I’m considering if the ñāṇaṃ is working on each of those 4 compounds, i.e. knowledge of each of them. Is this possible?

And these terms khayadhammaṃ etc., are they tappurisa, or nominative-nominative type kammadhāraya?

If I take the ti to have the longer distance of influence, and the compounds to be tappurisa, I’m so far getting something like this:

And the knowledge that: <‘dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ’, is: the phenomenon of passing away, the phenomenon of decay, the phenomenon of fading away, the phenomenon of destruction>.

If I take ti to have the shorter distance of influence, I’m so far getting:

And that ‘dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ’ [is] the knowledge of: the phenomenon of passing away, the phenomenon of decay, the phenomenon of fading away, the phenomenon of destruction.

I would love if anyone can chime in on this! Many thanks in advance.

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For the curious, this is from SN12.34.

And the knowledge that this knowledge of the stability of natural principles is liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease.

A literal and crude understanding of the phrase would be the observation that because knowledge of physics, science and engineering arose, then that knowledge must also disappear. Those are some of the disciplines that develop knowledge of the stability of natural principles.

A subtler interpretation would apply to the knowledge and teaching of the Dhamma itself, which is a stable and natural principle.

I cannot help with the grammar, however.

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Thanks @karl_lew. But yes I’m looking for interpretations of the Pāli, rather than the English. Because I’m not convinced that the English means what the Pāli is saying. So I’m trying to establish what the Pāli’s saying.

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Oh! Apologies, I misunderstood. The only other occurrence of dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ is from SN12.70:

“Pubbe kho, susima, dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ, pacchā nibbāne ñāṇan”ti.

“Susīma, first comes knowledge of the stability of natural principles. Afterwards there is knowledge of extinguishment.”

Perhaps that additional context might provide a clue.

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I actually said

So that’s the only term I’m actually trying not to discuss here! But thanks. (I have my thoughts on that term but I don’t want that term to draw focus away from the rest of the sentence, which is what I’m trying to undestand grammatically.)

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I seem to be all over the map in misunderstanding! :rofl:

I looked up yampissa taṃ and it seems to have an assertional function along with a context of current awareness, almost acting like the English phrase “see here now!”. Here is its use in SN12.23:

I say that this knowledge of ending has a vital condition, it doesn’t lack a vital condition.
Yampissa taṃ, bhikkhave, khayasmiṃ khayeñāṇaṃ, tampi saupanisaṃ vadāmi, no anupanisaṃ.

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The assa here is a short form of the dative/genitive pronoun “for him”, “of him”, rather than the optative. Assa is tricky! It’s not easy to tell just from this specific context, and the reading “whatever knowledge there may be …” is a tempting one. However elsewhere we find yampissa used commonly, and so far as I can tell, always as the dative/genitive pronoun.

SN 35.246:

Tassa rūpaṃ samanvesato … Yampissa taṃ hoti
For them seeking form … what of them is …

In SN 12.23 we find:

Evaṃ kho, bhikkhave, jānato evaṃ passato āsavānaṃ khayo hoti.
The ending of the defilements is for one who knows and sees this.
Yampissa taṃ, bhikkhave, khayasmiṃ khayeñāṇaṃ, tampi saupanisaṃ vadāmi, no anupanisaṃ.
I say that this knowledge of ending has a vital condition, it doesn’t lack a vital condition.

More literally, the latter would be “whatever is their knowledge”. The commentary says:

Evaṃ arahattanikūṭena desanaṃ niṭṭhapetvā idāni khīṇāsavassa āgamanīyaṃ pubbabhāgapaṭipadaṃ dassetuṃ yampissa taṃ, bhikkhavetiādimāha

Confirming that it reads the dative/genitive.

To bring this back to SN 12.34, the opening phrase thus literally reads;

Also (pi) what (yam) for them (assa) [is] that (tam) knowledge …

The following tampi then coordinates with the opening yampi:

Also what … that too …

The construction with the close -ti near the end of the phrase is a common one; it sets off the marked phrase for reflection. It may be rendered either with quotes, as Ven Bodhi does, or using “that” as I prefer to do. It refers back to the start of the sentence, as the coordinated pronouns make up a whole idea. You can also see the same construction used throughout this sutta. For this reason,

No, it is knowledge of the knowledge of these things. This is what the commentaries call paṭivipassanā: insight into the fact that even the insight knowledge itself is impermanent. Actually I should put an “even” in there. Thanks for encouraging me to look more closely.

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“the knowledge that ignorance is a condition for choices, and the knowledge that when ignorance doesn’t exist, there are no choices. And the knowledge that this knowledge of the stability of natural principles is liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease.”—SN 12.34

Taking the contextual means for interpretation, the first sentence about ‘no choices’ refers to nibbana , so presumably the following sentence does also. I think it is referring to the fact that the path is conditioned, while nibbana is unconditioned.

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Thank you very much @sujato for helping!

I’ve tried to identify the words for each part, I hope I got it right?:

The ending of the defilements is for one who knows and sees this.
Yampissa taṃ, bhikkhave, khayasmiṃ khayeñāṇaṃ, tampi saupanisaṃ vadāmi, no anupanisaṃ.
I say (vadāmi) that this (Yampissa taṃ) knowledge of ending (khayasmiṃ khayeñāṇaṃ) has a vital condition (tampi saupanisaṃ vadāmi), it doesn’t lack a vital condition (no anupanisaṃ).

If so, if we integrate what you’ve said, then is this a fair literal presentation of what it’s saying?

I say (vadāmi) also what for them is that (Yampissa taṃ) knowledge of ending (khayasmiṃ khayeñāṇaṃ), that too has a vital condition (tampi saupanisaṃ vadāmi), it doesn’t lack a vital condition (no anupanisaṃ).

I’m very interested in the theoretically allowable parameters of this ti. Because for me, this sentence has two phrases. So I feel as if we are considering whether it has to apply to both of them, or just the one it ends.

I felt something from the rhythm. From the preceding lines - they all go in pairs of ñāṇaṃ:

1a)
The knowledge that rebirth is a condition for old age and death,
Jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ;

1b)
and the knowledge that when rebirth doesn’t exist, there is no old age and death.
asati jātiyā natthi jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ;

2a)
Also regarding the past: the knowledge that rebirth is a condition for old age and death,
atītampi addhānaṃ jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ,

2b)
and the knowledge that when rebirth doesn’t exist, there is no old age and death.
asati jātiyā natthi jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ;

3a)
Also regarding the future: the knowledge that rebirth is a condition for old age and death,
anāgatampi addhānaṃ jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ,

3b)
and the knowledge that when rebirth doesn’t exist, there is no old age and death.
asati
jātiyā natthi jarāmaraṇanti ñāṇaṃ;

So it seems that we could expect the same type of pairing of ñāṇaṃ phrases following:

4a)
yampissa taṃ dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ

4b)
tampi khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhammanti ñāṇaṃ.

So in this case, supposing we have never read any commentaries and have no preconceptions of the meaning of this sentence aside from understanding the rules of Pāli grammar, is it at all possible that the ti could be working just on the second phrase in this sentence? So that we preserve the ‘ñāṇaṃ’ pairing as in the rest of the series, rather than having the last ñāṇaṃ swallow the whole sentence and in turn throwing off the rhythm, making only one knowledge? Even if you have ‘a knowledge which is b knowledge’ you still have two, a and b, whereas ‘knowledge of a knowledge which is b’ is just one knowledge - there’s no ‘b knowledge’ there.

Or to ask another way - here we have a+b+ñāṇaṃ and it’s said that a+b can together be stuck onto ñāṇaṃ and then together it becomes ‘knowledge of ab’. Is this b sufficient enough to ever be able to be stuck onto ñāṇaṃ, ‘b+ñāṇaṃ’, and result in the meaning 'knowledge of b’. For example, can the phrase khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhammanti ñāṇaṃ exist in isolation, without the a before it?

I don’t mean to be rude by asking again if it seems like the sam as the original question. Just trying to make it more clear to be sure of not missing any even unusual potential possibilities in the grammar. Well if ‘b+ñāṇaṃ’ can be grammatically possible by itself (but please say if that’s impossible), would it mean this?:

khayadhammaṃ vayadhammaṃ virāgadhammaṃ nirodhadhammanti ñāṇaṃ

knowledge of: the phenomenon of passing away, the phenomenon of decay, the phenomenon of fading away, the phenomenon of destruction.

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Per Bhante’s direction and your point on pairs, I would venture:

Knowledge about endings,
which is itself also subject to death, decay, fading away and cessation.

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Hi @karl_lew, thanks but again I’m merely trying to establish whether this grammar is the usually accepted one, or the only possible one.

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You say tempting. I took that to imply it was wrong. But did you mean it’s right/good, a good interpretation of reading it as genetive? Or…?

I don’t see how the genetive comes out in “And the knowledge that this knowledge…”

Out of interest, if it were optative, what would we translate it as? Would it be “If the knowledge…”? Or “That which would be knowledge…”?

Also, someone has suggested that the optative is more likely because there is no-one to whom the knowledge belongs. I also can’t find any subject in the whole teaching. How do we defend genetive in light of this? (Also I didn’t understand why you said dative/genitive - isn’t the dative āya?)

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yes.

Sure.

“impossible” is a high standard in grammar. But it clearly does not stand by itself: the coordinated yam/tam creates a whole statement: that is what it is for.

I mean that on first glance it looks like a good idea, but then not so much.

Yes, that is why it is tempting. But this kind of shift is not uncommon in Pali (and English too if you pay close attention). This is why I looked at other passages to determine if the idiom is used consistently elsewhere, and it is. Unless someone can come up with an example where it is unambiguously using the optative, it is definitely dative/genitive.

In Pali the two forms on an -a stem are usually expressed with -assa. āya is a specialized and somewhat rare form for the dative alone.

Terms that use the -assa ending can frequently, perhaps normally, be read as either case—“This is theirs” = genitive, “This is for them” = dative. Grammarians can argue about which case applies, but for practical purposes it is enough to simply understand what the expression is getting at.

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Thank you so much for your help @sujato, it’s greatly appreciated! I have now tried my best to express the meaning as I understand it, in English. I hope that it seems reasonable, and welcome any criticism!

For the -dhammaṃ compounds, I followed Ireland with ‘of a nature to’, instead of ‘liable to’, since ‘liable to’ is by definition not definite, whereas I felt the Pāli has the definite meaning - there is no exception, since it is describing aspects of the actual nature of the phenomenon. I even considered ‘bound to’ but while stronger than ‘liable to’, is still definitively uncertain.

For dhammaṭṭhitiñāṇaṃ this would require a rather long conversation perhaps, but just to say, I’m considering either of the following:

  • 'the knowledge the state of things’
    -‘the knowledge of the state of phenomena’
  • ‘the knowledge of the state of the phenomenal’

It seems to me that this kind of knowledge is generally (unless anyone can indicate otherwise?) contrasted with the other kind of experience which is we could say of the deathless element. Basically that this refers to the dual world of phenomena, the world which is impermanent etc. as opposed to nibbāna. For now I will use ‘the knowledge of the state of the phenomenal’ since perhaps this makes it a little clearer than state of ‘things’, though I do also liek that as the meaning seems accurate, if taken to heart.

So I am interpreting the sentence like this:

The knowledge that this: <‘knowledge of the state of the phenomenal’ is: something of the nature to pass away, something of the nature to decay, something of the nature to fade away, something of the nature to be destroyed>.

Or in more understandable English:

The knowledge this ‘knowledge of the state of the phenomenal’, is something which by its very nature, is subject to pass away, to decay, to fade away, to be destroyed.

(Or with that grammar would 'passing away… be better?)

Or I think I prefer it like this:

The knowledge that this ‘knowledge of the state of the phenomenal’ is by its very nature something which is subject to pass away, to decay, to fade away, to be destroyed.